Equity Trust provides counseling, technical consulting services, and education to individuals and groups across the U.S. including farmers, land trusts, municipalities, community groups, and others using shared equity models of ownership for housing and farms. Now in its 20th year, Equity Trust is a small, national nonprofit organization that works to change relationships between people, land, and resources. A focus of our work during the past 15 years has been to help farmers and their communities partner to protect farms, including protecting farmer housing and farm affordability.

In addition to providing consultation on land tenure issues, we provide model documents, and help to adapt these approaches to local situations. Equity Trust has produced a variety of publications to help people explore new approaches, models, and ideas for creating greater equity in the world. These resources include: Preserving Farms for Farmers: A Manual for Those Working to Keep Farms Affordable, Property and Values: Alternatives to Public and Private Ownership, Farmland and Farmers for the Future (25-minute DVD). Equity Trust’s model agricultural ground lease, and model agricultural easement can be downloaded for free along with commentary atwww.equitytrust.org

Equity Trust also operates a small revolving loan fund that accepts loans and gifts from individuals and organizations and pools these funds to make loans to projects — primarily affordable housing and farm protection projects — that are pioneering sustainable ways of balancing the needs of individuals with the needs of the community, the earth, and future generations.